Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye left, Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat center and Pastry Chef Chris Leung right, during in front of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

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Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye left, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle ) less

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye left, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

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Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye center,Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat right, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung left, during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle ) less

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye center,Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat right, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung left, during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

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Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

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Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye left, speaks with Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle ) less

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye left, speaks with Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

Image 6 of 9

Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat right, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung during a tour of the construction of the new Museum Park Cafe restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle ) less

Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat right, and Pastry Chef Chris Leung during a tour of the construction of the new Museum Park Cafe restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

Image 7 of 9

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye chef jacket during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )

Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye chef jacket during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )

Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat left, and Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Houston.
( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle ) less

Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat left, and Museum Park Cafe Chef Justin Basye during a tour of the construction of the new restaurant in the Parc Binz building Thursday, April 10, ... more

Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

Noted chef Justin Basye returns to the restaurant scene with his own museum-district kitchen

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Justin Basye, the well-regarded chef who has spent the last few years working behind the scenes for Pappas Restaurants, will return from the corporate world in June to run his own kitchen at the new Museum Park Cafe.

Balcor Hospitality owner and managing director Chris Balat announced today that not only will Basye fill the executive chef slot for the signature restaurant in his new Parc Binz midrise, he will also oversee the food at Bosta, an adjacent coffee and wine bar. Bosta is slated to be up and running by mid-May, while the Museum Park Cafe will open in mid-June, if construction continues according to plan.

It's big news for the fans who gravitated to Basye's groundbreaking charcuterie program at the late Voice restaurant in the Hotel Icon, and later to his work as chef de cuisine of the late Stella Sola Italian restaurant, operating under the umbrella of Reef's Bryan Caswell.

While at Stella Sola, Basye made the semifinalist list for the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef award, given yearly at the food world's version of the Oscars. Basye also staged a well-received pop-up dinner series under the name Les Sauvages before taking on the low-profile role with Pappas.

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Basye will be working with pastry chef Chris Leung, the culinary director for Balcor and the brains behind that company's Cloud 10 Creamery, a cutting-edge ice-cream parlor in Rice Village. Leung will be in charge of the dessert program at both the cafe and the coffee bar set to occupy the ground floor of the sleek Parc Binz building.

The team Balat has assembled will boast other key Houston names. David Buehrer and Ecky Prabanto of Greenway Coffee are helping with Bosta's coffee program, and they offered Balat the opportunity to hire their longtime employee Michelle Dinh as manager. Dinh has been studying to be a sommelier, so she'll have input on the Bosta wine list along with Basye and Leung, as they tune up their opening menus.

As to the menus, the word Balat cleaves to is "approachable," as in "traditional but still innovative." He says he wants the cafe and coffee/wine bar to be a welcoming destination spot in a neighborhood that's shy of eating and drinking spots, and that is undergoing rapid change - especially in the sector between the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Almeda, where Parc Binz is located.

"Our price point will be accommodated to the neighborhood," says Balat, who points out that everything from the big circular Bosta bar and the outdoor seating, thoughtfully raised three feet above street level, is geared toward making the restaurants (which in time will include a Korean fried chicken place) a "true community center."

The name Bosta goes deep, by the way. Balat named the coffee spot after his grandfather's onetime coffee shop next to the post-office in Ramallah, Palestine. "Arabs don't say "posta," explains Balat, so the shop was informally referred to as "Bosta."

Basye explains that the approachability they're aiming for will involve "seasonal, modern American" cooking. "We're going to be open every day, and we want to be a comfortable place." There will be a serious pasta program with fresh pasta made every day in the Museum Park Cafe; and Bosta, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, will focus not only on grab-and-go items but also some cooked dishes and a European-inspired sandwich list.

Basye says he'll be working with local and American salumi and cheese purveyors, as well as making a point of including small American artisanal wine and beer makers on the menus. His theme of American craftsmanship will extend to the interiors, he says: there will be wood, metal and clean minimalist lines.

That could describe the sleek look of the surprisingly glamorous Parc Binz building itself. While the interior is still being finished, the exterior - which wraps around the building - unfolds in serene horizontal stripes of glass, warm terra-cotta and cool gray Japanese Nichiha paneling, a handsome species of fiber cement.

Inside, the ceilings leap grandly to 18 feet. (Once they drop to satisfy Houston's building code, they'll still end up 15 feet high.) There's plenty of room in the Museum Park restaurant for two big window walls (one with a bar facing it), 80 seats, a private dining room, and outdoor seating for 30 to 40 more guests.

This project is not, in other words, your typical medical arts building. While the upper floors are all dedicated to medical offices (including one for Balat's father, Isam, an ob-gyn with a longtime Houston practice, Balat insisted on reserving the desirable ground floor for restaurants and public use.

That may not be cost-effective, he jokes, but then neither is wrapping fine materials around the entire structure, or hiding the parking away so neatly, or raising the level of the dining terrace so guests won't have cars flying past their faces.

Balat once wanted to be a chef himself. He's found a reasonable substitute by turning himself into the kind of enlightened restaurateur of which Houston could use more. He first admired Basye's talents at Stella Sola, and recognized Leung's gifts when he briefly contemplated doing a restaurant project with bad-boy chef Randy Rucker, Leung's then-employer.

Now he's gathered the two together, installed them in what promises to be grand space and - perhaps most significantly - offered them partner status and profit sharing. "They have an opportunity to make the right money and share in any success," says Balat.